LETTER TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH ON SOME ASPECTS OF CHRISTIAN MEDITATION

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

I.
Introduction

1. Many Christians today have a keen desire to learn how to
experience a deeper and authentic prayer life despite the not
inconsiderable difficulties which modern culture places in the way of
the need for silence, recollection and meditation. The interest which in
recent years has been awakened also among some Christians by forms of
meditation associated with some eastern religions and their particular
methods of prayer is a significant sign of this need for spiritual
recollection and a deep contact with the divine mystery. Nevertheless,
faced with this phenomenon, many feel the need for sure criteria of a
doctrinal and pastoral character which might allow them to instruct
others in prayer, in its numerous manifestations, while remaining
faithful to the truth revealed in Jesus, by means of the genuine
Tradition of the Church. This present letter seeks to reply to this
urgent need, so that in the various particular Churches the many
different forms of prayer, including new ones, may never lose their
correct personal and communitarian nature.

These indications are addressed in the first place to the Bishops, to
be considered in that spirit of pastoral solicitude for the Churches
entrusted to them, so that the entire people of God—priests, religious
and laity—may again be called to pray, with renewed vigor, to the
Father through the Spirit of Christ our Lord.

2. The ever more frequent contact with other religions and with their
different styles and methods of prayer has, in recent decades, led many
of the faithful to ask themselves what value non-Christian forms of
meditation might have for Christians. Above all, the question concerns
eastern methods.1 Some people today turn to these methods for
therapeutic reasons. The spiritual restlessness arising from a life
subjected to the driving pace of a technologically advanced society also
brings a certain number of Christians to seek in these methods of prayer
a path to interior peace and psychic balance. This psychological aspect
is not dealt with in the present letter, which instead emphasizes the
theological and spiritual implications of the question. Other
Christians, caught up in the movement towards openness and exchanges
between various religions and cultures, are of the opinion that their
prayer has much to gain from these methods. Observing that in recent
times many traditional methods of meditation, especially Christian ones,
have fallen into disuse, they wonder whether it might not now be
possible, by a new training in prayer, to enrich our heritage by
incorporating what has until now been foreign to it.

3. To answer this question7 one must first of all consider, even if
only in a general way, in what does the intimate nature of Christian
prayer consist. Then one can see if and how it might be enriched by
meditation methods which have been developed in other religions and
cultures. However, in order to achieve this, one needs to start with a
certain clear premise. Christian prayer is always determined by the
structure of the Christian faith, in which the very truth of God and
creature shines forth. For this reason, it is defined, properly
speaking, as a personal, intimate and profound dialogue between man and
God. It expresses therefore the communion of redeemed creatures with the
intimate life of the Persons of the Trinity. This communion, based on
Baptism and the Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the Church,
implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from "self" to the
"You" of God. Thus Christian prayer is at the same time always
authentically personal and communitarian. It flees from impersonal
techniques or from concentrating on oneself, which can create a kind of
rut, imprisoning the person praying in a spiritual privatism which is
incapable of a free openness to the transcendental God. Within the
Church, in the legitimate search for new methods of meditation it must
always be borne in mind that the essential element of authentic
Christian prayer is the meeting of two freedoms, the infinite freedom of
God with the finite freedom of man.

II. Christian Prayer In The Light Of Revelation

4. The Bible itself teaches how the man who welcomes biblical
revelation should pray. In the Old Testament there is a marvelous
collection of prayers which have continued to live through the
centuries, even within the Church of Jesus Christ, where they have
become the basis of its official prayer: The Book of Praises or of
Psalms.2 Prayers similar to the Psalms may also be found in earlier Old
Testament texts or re-echoed in later ones.3 The prayers of the book of
Psalms tell in the first place of God's great works on behalf of the
Chosen People. Israel meditates, contemplates and makes the marvels of
God present again, recalling them in prayer.

In biblical revelation Israel came to acknowledge and praise God
present in all creation and in the destiny of every man. Thus he is
invoked, for example, as rescuer in time of danger, in sickness, in
persecution, in tribulation. Finally, and always in the light of his
salvific works, he is exalted in his divine power and goodness, in his
justice and mercy, in his royal grandeur.

5. Thanks to the words, deeds, passion and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, in the "New Testament" the faith acknowledges in him
the definitive self-revelation of God, the Incarnate Word who reveals
the most intimate depth of his love. It is the Holy Spirit, he who was
sent into the hearts of the faithful, he who "searches everything,
even the depths of God" (1 Cor 2:10), who makes it possible to
enter into these divine depths. According to the promise Jesus made to
the disciples, the Spirit will explain all that he had not yet been able
to tell them. However, this Spirit "will not speak on his own
authority," but "he will glorify me, for he will take what is
mine and declare it to you" (Jn 16:13f.). What Jesus calls
"his" is, as he explains immediately, also God the Father's
because "all that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he
will take what is mine and declare it to you" (Jn 16:15).

The authors of the New Testament, with full cognizance, always spoke
of the revelation of God in Christ within the context of a vision
illuminated by the Holy Spirit. The Synoptic Gospels narrate Jesus'
deeds and words on the basis of a deeper understanding, acquired after
Easter, of what the disciples had seen and heard. The entire Gospel of
St. John is taken up with the contemplation of him who from the
beginning is the Word of God made flesh. Paul, to whom Jesus appeared in
his divine majesty on the road to Damascus, instructs the faithful so
that they "may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is
the breadth and length and height and depth [of the mystery of Christ],
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge, that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph 3:18 ff.). For
Paul the mystery of God is Christ, "in whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:3) and, the Apostle
clarifies, "I say this in order that no one may delude you with
beguiling speech" (v. 4).

6. There exists, then, a strict relationship between revelation and
prayer. The Dogmatic Constitution "Dei Verbum" teaches that by
means of his revelation the invisible God, "from the fullness of
his love, addresses men as his friends (cf. Ex 33:11; Jn 15:14-15), and
moves among them (cf. Bar 3:38), in order to invite and receive them
into his own company."4 This revelation takes place through words
and actions which have a constant mutual reference, one to the other;
from the beginning everything proceeds to converge on Christ, the
fullness of revelation and of grace, and on the gift of the Holy Spirit.
These make man capable of welcoming and contemplating the words and
works of God and of thanking him and adoring him, both in the assembly
of the faithful and in the intimacy of his own heart illuminated by
grace.

This is why the Church recommends the reading of the Word of God as a
source of Christian prayer, and at the same time exhorts all to discover
the deep meaning of Sacred Scripture through prayer "so that a
dialogue takes place between God and man. For, 'we speak to him when we
pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles.'"5

7. Some consequences derive immediately from what has been called to
mind. If the prayer of a Christian has to be inserted in the Trinitarian
movement of God, then its essential content must also necessarily be
determined by the twofold direction of such movement. It is in the Holy
Spirit that the Son comes into the world to reconcile it to the Father
through his works and sufferings. On the other hand, in this same
movement and in the very same Spirit, the Son Incarnate returns to the
Father, fulfilling his will through his passion and resurrection. The
"Our Father," Jesus' own prayer, clearly indicates the unity
of this movement: the will of the Father must be done on earth as it is
in heaven (the petitions for bread, forgiveness and protection make
explicit the fundamental dimensions of God's will for us), so that there
may be a new earth in the heavenly Jerusalem.

The prayer of Jesus6 has been entrusted to the Church ("Pray
then like this"—Lk 11:2). This is why when a Christian prays,
even if he is alone, his prayer is in fact always within the framework
of the "communion of saints" in which and with which he prays,
whether in a public and liturgical way or in a private manner.
Consequently, it must always be offered within the authentic spirit of
the Church at prayer, and therefore under its guidance, which can
sometimes take a concrete form in terms of a proven spiritual direction.
The Christian, even when he is alone and prays in secret, is conscious
that he always prays for the good of the Church in union with Christ, in
the Holy Spirit and together with all the saints.7

III. Erroneous Ways Of Praying

8. Even in the first centuries of the Church some incorrect forms of
prayer crept in. Some New Testament texts (cf. 1 Jn 4:3; 1 Tim 1:3-7 and
4:3-4) already give hints of their existence. Subsequently, two
fundamental deviations came to be identified: Pseudognosticism and
Messalianism, both of concern to the Fathers of the Church. There is
much to be learned from that experience of primitive Christianity and
the reaction of the Fathers which can help in tackling the current
problem.

In combating the errors of "pseudognosticism"8 the Fathers
affirmed that matter is created by God and as such is not evil.
Moreover, they maintained that grace, which always has the Holy Spirit
as its source is not a good proper to the soul, but must be sought from
God as a gift. Consequently, the illumination or superior knowledge of
the Spirit ("gnosis") does not make Christian faith something
superfluous. Finally, for the Fathers, the authentic sign of a superior
knowledge, the fruit of prayer, is always Christian love.

9. If the perfection of Christian prayer cannot be evaluated using
the sublimity of gnostic knowledge as a basis, neither can it be judged
by referring to the experience of the divine, as "Messalianism"
proposed.9 These false fourth-century charismatics identified the grace
of the Holy Spirit with the psychological experience of his presence in
the soul. In opposing them, the Fathers insisted on the fact that the
soul's union with God in prayer is realized in a mysterious way, and in
particular through the sacraments of the Church. Moreover, it can even
be achieved through experiences of affliction or desolation. Contrary to
the view of the Messalians, these are not necessarily a sign that the
Spirit has abandoned a soul. Rather, as masters of spirituality have
always clearly acknowledged, they may be an authentic participation in
the state of abandonment experienced on the cross by our Lord, who
always remains the model and mediator of prayer.10. Both of these forms
of error continue to be a "temptation for man the sinner."
They incite him to try and overcome the distance separating creature
from Creator, as though there ought not to be such a distance; to
consider the way of Christ on earth, by which he wishes to lead us to
the Father, as something now surpassed; to bring down to the level of
natural psychology what has been regarded as pure grace, considering it
instead as "superior knowledge" or as "experience."

Such erroneous forms, having reappeared in history from time to time
on the fringes of the Church's prayer, seem once more to impress many
Christians, appealing to them as a kind of remedy, be it psychological
or spiritual, or as a quick way of finding God.11

11. However, these forms of error, wherever they arise, "can be
diagnosed" very simply. The meditation of the Christian in prayer
seeks to grasp the depths of the divine in the salvific works of God in
Christ, the Incarnate Word, and in the gift of his Spirit. These divine
depths are always revealed to him through the human-earthly dimension.
Similar methods of meditation, on the other hand, including those which
have their starting-point in the words and deeds of Jesus, try as far as
possible to put aside everything that is worldly, sense perceptible or
conceptually limited. It is thus an attempt to ascend to or immerse
oneself in the sphere of the divine, which, as such, is neither
terrestrial, sense-perceptible nor capable of conceptualization.12 This
tendency, already present in the religious sentiments of the later Greek
period (especially in "Neoplatonism"), is found deep in the
religious inspiration of many peoples, no sooner than they become aware
of the precarious character of their representations of the divine and
of their attempts to draw close to it.

12. With the present diffusion of eastern methods of meditation in
the Christian world and in ecclesial communities, we find ourselves
faced with a pointed renewal of an attempt, which is not free from
dangers and errors, "to fuse Christian meditation with that which
is non-Christian." Proposals in this direction are numerous and
radical to a greater or lesser extent. Some use eastern methods solely
as a psycho-physical preparation for a truly Christian contemplation;
others go further and, using different techniques, try to generate
spiritual experiences similar to those described in the writings of
certain Catholic mystics.13 Still others do not hesitate to place that
absolute without image or concepts, which is proper to Buddhist theory,
14 on the same level as the majesty of God revealed in Christ, which
towers above finite reality. To this end, they make use of a
"negative theology," which transcends every affirmation
seeking to express what God is, and denies that the things of this world
can offer traces of the infinity of God. Thus they propose abandoning
not only meditation on the salvific works accomplished in history by the
God of the Old and New Covenant, but also the very idea of the One and
Triune God, who is Love, in favor of an immersion "in the
indeterminate abyss of the divinity."15 These and similar proposals
to harmonize Christian meditation with eastern techniques need to have
their contents and methods ever subjected to a thorough-going
examination so as to avoid the danger of falling into syncretism.

IV. The Christian Way To Union With God

13. To find the right "way" of prayer, the Christian should
consider what has been said earlier regarding the prominent features of
the "way of Christ," whose "food is to do the will of him
who sent [him], and to accomplish his work" (Jn 4:34). Jesus lives
no more intimate or closer a union with the Father than this, which for
him is continually translated into deep prayer. By the will of the
Father he is sent to mankind, to sinners. to his very executioners, and
he could not be more intimately united to the Father than by obeying his
will. This did not in any way prevent him, however, from also retiring
to a solitary place during his earthly sojourn to unite himself to the
Father and receive from him new strength for his mission in this world.
On Mount Tabor, where his union with the Father was manifest, there was
called to mind his passion (cf. Lk 9:31), and there was not even a
consideration of the possibility of remaining in "three
booths" on the Mount of the Transfiguration. Contemplative
Christian prayer always leads to love of neighbor, to action and to the
acceptance of trials, and precisely because of this it draws one close
to God.

14. In order to draw near to that mystery of union with God, which
the Greek Fathers called the "divinization" of man, and to
grasp accurately the manner in which this is realized, it is necessary
in the first place to bear in mind that man is essentially a creature,16
and remains such for eternity, so that an absorbing of the human self
into the divine self is never possible, not even in the highest states
of grace. However, one must recognize that the human person is created
in the "image and likeness" of God, and that the archetype of
this image is the Son of God, in whom and through whom we have been
created (cf. Col 1:16). This archetype reveals the greatest and most
beautiful Christian mystery: from eternity the Son is "other"
with respect to the Father and yet, in the Holy Spirit, he is "of
the same substance." Consequently this otherness, far from being an
ill, is rather the greatest of goods. There is otherness in God himself,
who is one single nature in three Persons, and there is also otherness
between God and creatures, who are by nature different. Finally, in the
Holy Eucharist, as in the rest of the sacraments—and analogically in
his works and in his words—Christ gives himself to us and makes us
participate in his divine nature,17 without nevertheless suppressing our
created nature, in which he himself shares through his Incarnation.

15. A consideration of these truths together brings the wonderful
discovery that all the aspirations which the prayer of other religions
expresses are fulfilled in the reality of Christianity beyond all
measure, without the personal self or the nature of a creature being
dissolved or disappearing into the sea of the Absolute. "God is
love" (1 Jn 4:8). This profoundly Christian affirmation can
reconcile perfect "union" with the "otherness"
existing between lover and loved, with eternal exchange and eternal
dialogue. God is himself this eternal exchange and we can truly become
sharers of Christ, as "adoptive sons" who cry out with the Son
in the Holy Spirit, Abba, Father." In this sense, the Fathers are
perfectly correct in speaking of the divinization of man who, having
been incorporated into Christ, the Son of God by nature, may by his
grace share in the divine nature and become a "son in the
Son." Receiving the Holy Spirit, the Christian glorifies the Father
and really shares in the Trinitarian life of God.

V. Questions Of Method

16. The majority of the "great religions" which have sought
union with God in prayer have also pointed out ways to achieve it. Just
as "the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in
these religions,"18 neither should these ways be rejected out of
hand simply because they are not Christian. On the contrary, one can
take from them what is useful so long as the Christian conception of
prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured. It is within the
context of all of this that these bits and pieces should be taken up and
expressed anew. Among these one might mention first of all that of the
humble acceptance of a master who is an expert in the life of prayer,
and of the counsels he gives. Christian experience has known of this
practice from earliest times, from the epoch of the desert Fathers. Such
a master, being an expert in "sentire cum ecclesia," must not
only direct and warn of certain dangers; as a "spiritual
father," he has to also lead his pupil in a dynamic way, heart to
heart, into the life of prayer, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

17. In the later non-Christian classical period, there was a
convenient distinction made between three stages in the life of
perfection: the purgative way, the illuminative way and the unitive way.
This teaching has served as a model for many schools of Christian
spirituality. While in itself valid, this analysis nevertheless requires
several clarifications so as to be interpreted in a correct Christian
manner which avoids dangerous misunderstandings.

18. The seeking of God through prayer has to be preceded and
accompanied by an ascetical struggle and a purification from one's own
sins and errors, since Jesus has said that only "the pure of heart
shall see God" (Mt 5:8). The Gospel aims above all at a moral
purification from the lack of truth and love and, on a deeper level,
from all the selfish instincts which impede man from recognizing and
accepting the will of God in its purity. The passions are not negative
in themselves (as the Stoics and Neoplatonists thought), but their
tendency is to selfishness. It is from this that the Christian has to
free himself in order to arrive at that state of positive freedom which
in classical Christian times was called "apatheia," in the
Middle Ages "Impassibilitas" and in the Ignatian Spiritual
Exercises "indiferencia."19

This is impossible without a radical self-denial, as can also be seen
in St. Paul who openly uses the word "mortification" (of
sinful tendencies).20 Only this self-denial renders man free to carry
out the will of God and to share in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

19. Therefore, one has to interpret correctly the teaching of those
masters who recommend "emptying" the spirit of all sensible
representations and of every concept, while remaining lovingly attentive
to God. In this way, the person praying creates an empty space which can
then be filled by the richness of God. However, the emptiness which God
requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not
necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he
has given us and among which he has placed us. There is no doubt that in
prayer one should concentrate entirely on God and as far as possible
exclude the things of this world which bind us to our selfishness. On
this topic St. Augustine is an excellent teacher: if you want to find
God, he says, abandon the exterior world and re-enter into yourself.
However, he continues, do not remain in yourself, but go beyond yourself
because you are not God; he is deeper and greater than you. "I look
for his substance in my soul and I do not find it; I have however
meditated on the search for God and, reaching out to him, through
created things, I have sought to know 'the invisible perfections of God'
(Rom 1:20)."2 "To remain in oneself": this is the real
danger. The great Doctor of the Church recommends concentrating on
oneself, but also transcending the self which is not God, but only a
creature. God is "deeper than my inmost being and higher than my
greatest height."22 In fact God is in us and with us, but he
transcends us in his mystery.23

20. "From the dogmatic point of view," it is impossible to
arrive at a perfect love of God if one ignores his giving of himself to
us through his Incarnate Son, who was crucified and rose from the dead.
In him, under the action of the Holy Spirit, we participate, through
pure grace, in the interior life of God. When Jesus says, "He who
has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9), he does not mean just
the sight and exterior knowledge of his human figure (in the flesh is of
no avail"—Jn 6:63). What he means is rather a vision made
possible by the grace of faith: to see, through the manifestation of
Jesus perceptible by the senses, just what he, as the Word of the
Father, truly wants to reveal to us of God ("It is the Spirit that
gives life [...]; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and
life"—ibid.). This "seeing" is not a matter of a purely
human abstraction ("abstractio") from the figure in which God
has revealed himself; it is rather the grasping of the divine reality in
the human figure of Jesus, his eternal divine dimension in its temporal
form. As St. Ignatius says in the "Spiritual Exercises," we
should try to capture "the infinite perfume and the infinite
sweetness of the divinity" (n. 124), going forward from that finite
revealed truth from which we have begun. While he raises us up, God is
free to "empty" us of all that holds us back in this world, to
draw us completely into the Trinitarian life of his eternal love.
However, this gift can only be granted "in Christ through the Holy
Spirit," and not through our own efforts, withdrawing ourselves
from his revelation .

21. On the path of the Christian life, illumination follows on from
purification, through the love which the Father bestows on us in the Son
and the anointing which we receive from him in the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Jn
2:20). Ever since the early Christian period, writers have referred to
the "illumination" received in Baptism. After their initiation
into the divine mysteries, this illumination brings the faithful to know
Christ by means of the faith which works through love. Some
ecclesiastical writers even speak explicitly of the illumination
received in Baptism as the basis of that sublime knowledge of Christ
Jesus (cf. Phil 3:8), which is defined as "theoria" or
contemplation.24 The faithful, with the grace of Baptism, are called to
progress in the knowledge and witness of the mysteries of the faith by
"the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they
experience."25 No light from God can render the truths of the faith
redundant. Any subsequent graces of illumination which God may grant
rather help to make clearer the depth of the mysteries confessed and
celebrated by the Church, as we wait for the day when the Christian can
contemplate God as he is in glory (cf. 1 Jn 3:2).

22. Finally, the Christian who prays can, if God so wishes, come to a
particular experience of "union." The Sacraments, especially
Baptism and the Eucharist,26 are the objective beginning of the union of
the Christian with God. Upon this foundation, the person who prays can
be called, by a special grace of the Spirit, to that specific type of
union with God which in Christian terms is called "mystical."

23. Without doubt, a Christian needs certain periods of retreat into
solitude to be recollected and, in God's presence, rediscover his path.
Nevertheless, given his character as a creature, and as a creature who
knows that only in grace is he secure, his method of getting closer to
God is not based on any "technique" in the strict sense of the
word. That would contradict the spirit of childhood called for by the
Gospel. Genuine Christian mysticism has nothing to do with technique: it
is always a gift of God, and the one who benefits from it knows himself
to be unworthy.27

24. There are certain "mystical graces," conferred on the
founders of ecclesial institutes to benefit their foundation, and on
other saints, too, which characterize their personal experience of
prayer and which cannot, as such, be the object of imitation and
aspiration for other members of the faithful, even those who belong to
the same institutes and those who seek an ever more perfect way of
prayer.28 There can be different levels and different ways of sharing in
a founder's experience of prayer, without everything having to be
exactly the same. Besides, the prayer experience that is given a
privileged position in all genuinely ecclesial institutes, ancient and
modern, is always in the last analysis something personal. And it is to
the individual person that God gives his graces for prayer.

25. With regard to mysticism, one has to distinguish between
"the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the charisms" granted by God
in a totally gratuitous way. The former are something which every
Christian can quicken in himself by his zeal for the life of faith, hope
and charity; and thus, by means of a serious ascetical struggle, he can
reach a certain experience of God and of the contents of the faith. As
for charisms, St. Paul says that these are, above all, for the benefit
of the Church, of the other members of the Mystical Body of Christ (cf.
1 Cor 12:17). With this in mind, it should be remembered that charisms
are not the same things as extraordinary ("mystical") gifts
(cf. Rom 12:3-21), and that the distinction between the "gifts of
the Holy Spirit" and "charisms" can be flexible. It is
certain that a charism which bears fruit for the Church, cannot, in the
context of the New Testament, be exercised without a certain degree of
personal perfection, and that, on the other hand, every
"living" Christian has a specific task (and in this sense a
"charism") "for the building up of the body of
Christ" (cf. Eph 4:15-16),29 in communion with the hierarchy whose
job it is "not indeed to extinguish the Spirit, but to test all
things and hold fast to what is good" (LG, n. 12).

VI. Psychological-Corporal Methods

26. Human experience shows that the "position and demeanor of
the body" also have their influence on the recollection and
dispositions of the spirit. This is a fact to which some eastern and
western Christian spiritual writers have directed their attention.

Their reflections, while presenting points in common with eastern
non-Christian methods of meditation, avoid the exaggerations and
partiality of the latter, which, however, are often recommended to
people today who are not sufficiently prepared.

The spiritual authors have adopted those elements which make
recollection in prayer easier, at the same time recognizing their
relative value: they are useful if reformulated in accordance with the
aim of Christian prayer.30 For example, the Christian fast signifies,
above all, an exercise of penitence and sacrifice; but, already for the
Fathers, it also had the aim of rendering man more open to the encounter
with God and making a Christian more capable of self-dominion and at the
same time more attentive to those in need.

In prayer it is the whole man who must enter into relation with God,
and so his body should also take up the position most suited to
recollection.31 Such a position can in a symbolic way express the prayer
itself, depending on cultures and personal sensibilities. In some
aspects, Christians are today becoming more conscious of how one's
bodily posture can aid prayer.

27. Eastern Christian meditation32 has valued "psychophysical
symbolism," often absent in western forms of prayer. It can range
from a specific bodily posture to the basic life functions, such as
breathing or the beating of the heart. The exercise of the "Jesus
Prayer," for example, which adapts itself to the natural rhythm of
breathing can, at least for a certain time, be of real help to many
people.33 On the other hand, the eastern masters themselves have also
noted that not everyone is equally suited to making use of this
symbolism, since not everybody is able to pass from the material sign to
the spiritual reality that is being sought.

Understood in an inadequate and incorrect way, the symbolism can even
become an idol and thus an obstacle to the raising up of the spirit to
God. To live out in one's prayer the full awareness of one's body as a
symbol is even more difficult: it can degenerate into a cult of the body
and can lead surreptitiously to considering all bodily sensations as
spiritual experiences.

28. Some physical exercises automatically produce a feeling of quiet
and relaxation, pleasing sensations, perhaps even phenomena of light and
of warmth, which resemble spiritual well-being. To take such feelings
for the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit would be a totally
erroneous way of conceiving the spiritual life. Giving them a symbolic
significance typical of the mystical experience, when the moral
condition of the person concerned does not correspond to such an
experience, would represent a kind of mental schizophrenia which could
also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations.

That does not mean that genuine practices of meditation which come
from the Christian East and from the great non-Christian religions,
which prove attractive to the man of today who is divided and
disoriented, cannot constitute a suitable means of helping the person
who prays to come before God with an interior peace, even in the midst
of external pressures.

It should, however, be remembered that habitual union with God,
namely that attitude of interior vigilance and appeal to the divine
assistance which in the New Testament is called "continuous
prayer,"34 is not necessarily interrupted when one devotes oneself
also, according to the will of God, to work and to the care of one's
neighbor. "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all
to the glory of God," the Apostle tells us (1 Cor 10:31). In fact,
genuine prayer, as the great spiritual masters teach, stirs up in the
person who prays an ardent charity which moves him to collaborate in the
mission of the Church and to serve his brothers for the greater glory of
God.35

VII. "I Am The Way"

29. From the rich variety of Christian prayer as proposed by the
Church, each member of the faithful should seek and find his own way,
his own form of prayer. But all of these personal ways, in the end, flow
into the way to the Father, which is how Jesus Christ has described
himself. In the search for his own way, each person will, therefore, let
himself be led not so much by his personal tastes as by the Holy Spirit,
who guides him, through Christ, to the Father.

30. For the person who makes a serious effort there will, however, be
moments in which he seems to be wandering in a desert and, in spite of
all his efforts, he "feels" nothing of God. He should know
that these trials are not spared anyone who takes prayer seriously.
However, he should not immediately see this experience, common to all
Christians who pray, as the "dark night" in the mystical
sense. In any case in these moments, his prayer, which he will
resolutely strive to keep to, could give him the impression of a certain
"artificiality," although really it is something totally
different: in fact it is at that very moment an expression of his
fidelity to God, in whose presence he wishes to remain even when he
receives no subjective consolation in return.

In these apparently negative moments, it becomes clear what the
person who is praying really seeks: is he indeed looking for God who, in
his infinite freedom. always surpasses him; or is he only seeking
himself, without managing to go beyond his own "experiences,"
whether they be positive "experiences" of union with God or
negative "experiences" of mystical "emptiness ."

31. The love of God, the sole object of Christian contemplation, is a
reality which cannot be "mastered" by any method or technique.
On the contrary, we must always have our sights fixed on Jesus Christ,
in whom God's love went to the cross for us and there assumed even the
condition of estrangement from the Father (cf. Mk 13:34). We therefore
should allow God to decide the way he wishes to have us participate in
his love. But we can never, in any way, seek to place ourselves on the
same level as the object of our contemplation. the free love of God; not
even when, through the mercy of God the Father and the Holy Spirit sent
into our hearts, we receive in Christ the gracious gift of a sensible
reflection of that divine love and we feel drawn by the truth and beauty
and goodness of the Lord.

The more a creature is permitted to draw near to God, the greater his
reverence before the thrice-holy God. One then understands those words
of St. Augustine: "You can call me friend; I recognize myself a
servant."36 Or the words which are even more familiar to us, spoken
by her who was rewarded with the highest degree of intimacy with God:
"He has looked upon his servant in her lowliness" (Lk 1:48).

The Supreme Pontiff, John Paul II, in an audience granted to the
undersigned Cardinal Prefect, gave his approval to this letter, drawn up
in a plenary session of this Congregation, and ordered its publication.

At Rome, from the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, October 15, 1989, the Feast of Saint Teresa of Jesus.

Joseph Card. Ratzinger Prefect

Alberto Bovone Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Numidia
Secretary

Endnotes

1. The expression "eastern methods" is used to refer to
methods which are inspired by Hinduism and Buddhism, such as
"Zen," "Transcendental Meditation" or
"Yoga." Thus it indicates methods of meditation of the
non-Christian Far East which today are not infrequently adopted by some
Christians also in their meditation. The orientation of the principles
and methods contained in this present document is intended to serve as a
reference point not just for this problem, but also, in a more general
way. for the different forms of prayer practiced nowadays in ecclesial
organizations, particularly in associations, movements and groups.

2. Regarding the Book of Psalms in the prayer of the Church, cf.
"Institutio generalis de Liturgia Horarum," nn. 100-109.

8. Pseudognosticism considered matter as something impure and
degraded which enveloped the soul in an ignorance from which prayer had
to free it, thereby raising it to true superior knowledge and so to a
pure state. Of course not everyone was capable of this, only those who
were truly spiritual; for simple believers, faith and observance of the
commandments of Christ were sufficient.

11. In the Middle Ages there existed extreme trends on the fringe of
the Church. These were described not without irony, by one of the great
Christian contemplatives, the Flemish Jan van Ruysbroek. He
distinguished three types of deviations in the mystical life ("Die
gheestelike Brulocht" 228. 12-230, 17: 230. 18- 32. 22: 232.
23-236. 6) and made a general critique of these forms (236, 7-237, 29).
Similar techniques were subsequently identified and dismissed by St.
Teresa of Avila who perceptively observed that "the very care taken
not to think about anything will arouse the mind to think a great
deal," and that the separation of the mystery of Christ from
Christian meditation is always a form of "betrayal" (see: St.
Teresa of Jesus. Vida 12, 5 and 22, 1-5).

12. Pope John Paul II has pointed out to the whole Church the example
and the doctrine of St. Teresa of Avila who in her life had to reject
the temptation of certain methods which proposed a leaving aside of the
humanity of Christ in favor of a vague self-immersion in the abyss of
the divinity. In a homily given on November 1, 1982, he said that the
call of Teresa of Jesus advocating a prayer completely centered on
Christ "is valid, even in our day, against some methods of prayer
which are not inspired by the Gospel and which in practice tend to set
Christ aside in preference for a mental void which makes no sense in
Christianity. Any method of prayer is valid insofar as it is inspired by
Christ and leads to Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (cf.
Jn 14:6)." See: "Homilia Abulae habita in honorem Sanctae
Teresiae:" AAS 75 (1983), 256-257.

13. See, for example. "The Cloud of Unknowing," a spiritual
work by an anonymous English writer of the fourteenth century.

14. In Buddhist religious texts, the concept of "Nirvana"
is understood as a state of quiet consisting in the extinction of every
tangible reality insofar as it is transient, and as such delusive and
sorrowful.

15. Meister Eckhart speaks of an immersion "in the indeterminate
abyss of the divinity" which is a "darkness in which the light
of the Trinity never shines." Cf. "Sermo 'Ave Gratia Plena'"
in fine (J. Quint, "Deutsche Predigten und Traktate" Hanser
1955, 261).

16. Cf. Pastoral Constitution "Gaudium et spes" n. 19, 1:
"The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called
to communion with God. The invitation to converse with God is addressed
to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists it is because
God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him
in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely
acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator."

23. The positive Christian sense of the "emptying" of
creatures stands out in an exemplary way in St. Francis of Assisi.
Precisely because he renounced creatures for love of God, he saw all
things as being filled with his presence and resplendent in their
dignity as God's creatures, and the secret hymn of their being is
intoned by him in his "Cantico delle Creature." Cf. C. Esser,
"Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis" Ed. Ad Claras
Aquas, Grottaferrata (Roma) 1978, pp. 83-86. In the same way he writes
in the "Lettera a Tutti i Fedeli:" "Let every creature in
heaven and on earth and in the sea and in the depth of the abyss (Rev 5:
13) give praise, glory and honor and blessing to God, for he is our life
and our strength. He who alone is good (Lk 18: 19), who alone is the
most high, who alone is omnipotent and admirable, glorious and holy,
worthy of praise and blessed for infinite ages of ages. Amen"
("ibid Opuscula" 124). St. Bonaventure shows how in every
creature Francis perceived the call of God and poured out his soul in
the great hymn of thanksgiving and praise (cf. "Legenda S Francisci"
chap. 9, n. 1, in "Opera Omnia" ed. Quaracchi 1898, Vol. VIII
p 530).

26. The Eucharist, which the Dogmatic Constitution "Lumen
Gentium" defines as "the source and summit of the Christian
life" (LG 11), makes us "really share in the body of the
Lord": in it "we are taken up into communion with him"
(LG 7).

27. Cf. St. Teresa of Jesus, "Castillo Interior" IV 1, 2.

28. No one who prays, unless he receives a special grace, covets an
overall vision of the revelations of God, such as St. Gregory recognized
in St. Benedict. or that mystical impulse with which St. Francis of
Assisi would contemplate God in all his creatures, or an equally global
vision, such as that given to St. Ignatius at the River Cardoner and of
which he said that for him it could have taken the place of Sacred
Scripture. The "dark night" described by St. John of the Cross
is part of his personal charism of prayer. Not every member of his order
needs to experience it in the same way so as to reach that perfection of
prayer to which God has called him.

29. The Christian's call to "mystical" experiences can
include both what St. Thomas classified as a living experience of God
via the gifts of the Holy Spirit. and the inimitable forms (and for that
reason forms to which one ought not to aspire) of the granting of grace.
Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologiae" Ia, IIae, 1 c, as
well as a. 5, ad 1.

32. Such as, for example, that of the Hesychast anchorites. Hesychia
or external and internal quiet is regarded by the anchorites as a
condition of prayer. In its oriental form it is characterized by
solitude and techniques of recollection.

33. The practice of the "Jesus Prayer," which consists of
repeating the formula, rich in biblical references, of invocation and
supplication (e.g., "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on
me"), is adapted to the natural rhythm of breathing. In this
regard, see St. Ignatius of Loyola, "Ejercicios Espirituales"
n. 258.

34. Cf. 1 Thes 5: 17, also 2 Thes 3: 8-12. From these and other texts
there arises the question of how to reconcile the duty to pray
continually with that of working. See, among others, St. Augustine,
"Epistula" 130, 20: PL 33, 501-502 and St. John Cassian,
"De Institutis Coenobiorum" III, 1-3: SC 109, 92-93. Also, the
"Demonstration of Prayer" by Aphraat, the first father of the
Syriac Church, and in particular nn. 14-15, which deal with the
so-called "works of Prayer" (cf. the edition of J. Parisot,
"Afraatis Sapientis Persae Demonstrationes" IV PS 1, pp.
170-174).